This paper demonstrates a way in which citizens can be effectively involved in data collection to generate new knowledge about pathways and hotspots of marine litter abundance in the North Sea region of Germany. This should help to tackle the problem within an interdisciplinary research approach. We use a combination of in-situ experiments involving the release of degradable wooden drifters into the North Sea and a web-based survey provided by the Geospatial Content Management System (GeoCMS) 'HotSpot' to report drifter sightings. The focus lies on the techniques used to provide the web-based report tool as well as on the methods used to ensure data quality and inform participants via web mapping tools. We present an overview of the first results, which are also available in the project's web portal, to increase public awareness of the global litter problem, in particular macroplastics in the oceans and along the North Sea coast.
The forest monitoring in North Rhine-Westphalia consists of the forest condition evaluation, the foliar chemistry survey and the soil condition evaluation which are parts of the Germany-wide Level I network. Additionally, there are eight permanent sampling sites of the Europe-wide Level II network (UNECE ICP Forests). These data should be integrated and analysed by multivariate statistical methods. But there are problems regarding the access to data for scientific purposes. Accordingly, a Web-based geographical information system for compiling, management and analysis of forest monitoring data was implemented based on Open Source software to improve and harmonise data handling, visualisation and analysis.
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